Brendan Rodgers: Mario Balotelli is 'Studying Anfield's History to Become a Liverpool Hero'

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has revealed Mario Balotelli is studying Anfield's history in order to develop into one of the club's heroes, like Luis Suarez was.

The Merseyside manager completed the signing of the Italian international striker in the summer for £16m following Suarez's move to Barcelona.

Rodgers revealed he was impressed by Balotelli's attitude and willingness to learn, as well as his performances on the pitch.

"He's a boy who has really looked into the history of the club and he understands the great strikers of the past," Rodgers said to Liverpool Echo.

"We have spoken about [Luis] Suarez and his time here. Remember he's still young, he still wants to learn, he still needs to learn and that's the beauty of it for me."

Having played for Manchester City, Balotelli has quickly settled into the Premier League's pace, while he scored his first goal for Liverpool during their 2-1 victory over Ludogorets Razgrad in the Champions League on 16 September.

"When I spoke to him when I first met him, he still had this keenness to want to learn and when you see his work against Ludogorets, he put his body on the line and he needs to do more of that," the manager said.

"I think that will come when he gets fitter and getting into good positions will allow him to score goals. But he's well in tune with the history, not only of the club, but of Liverpool."

However, the manager believes Balotelli still can improve and the striker is said to be working hard during training sesions to adapt to Liverpool's style.

"As a coach, you'll always have some players who are low maintenance and some who are high maintenance for different reasons. I'll spend a lot of time with a lot of the players, but he's a good boy and he's prepared to work", Rodgers said.

"His work rate [against Ludogorets] was good, OK the ball's bounced off him a couple of times but we're trying to improve him in the transition so that when he makes a mistake he can go after it.

"I think we can see he's trying to put it in for the team and that's very important because the crowd demand that. The players who have been here in the past in that position have been non-stop and he's becoming attuned to that.